Science & Tech

Harvard’s research spans the gamut from the sciences to the humanities, examining key questions about this critical challenge facing humanity.

U.S. Undersecretary of Energy Kristina Johnson said the United States plans to have 80 percent of its energy come from alternative and unconventional fossil fuels by 2050. She spoke as part of the “Future of Energy” discussion series sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

Just over a century ago, one of the world’s leading mathematicians posed this question to a number of his colleagues: What are the most important unsolved questions in mathematics? The…

Carbon nanotubes, long touted for applications in materials and electronics, may also be the stuff of atomic-scale black holes. Physicists at Harvard University have found that a high-voltage nanotube can…

Esteemed biologist Edward O. Wilson called for renewed efforts to understand and conserve the planet’s biodiversity, in the first of three Prather Lectures being presented this week.

Scientists believe that tiny carbon nanotubes may also create something like atomic-scale black holes.

Scientist Carolyn Porco explored the deeper regions of the solar system and her work with the Cassini mission to Saturn during a talk at Radcliffe.

Clean, renewable wind and solar power may be the most-preferred fossil fuel alternatives, but their land-hungry collecting requirements make them difficult options for replacing more conventional power sources, according to a British energy…

David MacKay, physics professor at Cambridge University and scientific adviser to the United Kingdom’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, outlines challenges facing efforts to eliminate fossil fuels from the world’s energy mix.

In 1900, renowned mathematician David Hilbert laid down a challenge to future generations: 23 handpicked mathematical problems, all difficult, all important, and all unsolved. Since then, countless mathematicians around the world have struggled…

Women conducting research in the life sciences continue to receive lower levels of compensation than their male counterparts, even at the upper levels of academic and professional accomplishment, according to…

Major media outlets are this weekend reporting that President Barack Obama has selected Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) professor Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP,  to head the federal government’s…

Count Harvard computer experts among those who responded swiftly to the deadly earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, throwing their expertise behind an effort to improve information flow for responders on…

Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis created Web clearinghouses to aid information flow in response to Haiti’s and Chile’s earthquakes.

Creative vibe colors enormous CS 50 innovation fair

Human societies in Europe at the end of the last ice age expanded north across a harsh but changing environment, as glaciers melted and the world got warmer and more humid.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We hear this mantra time and again. When it comes to carbon—the “Most Wanted” element in terms of climate change—nature has got reuse and recycle covered. However, it’s up to us to reduce.

Author-turned-activist Bill McKibben says the fight to arrest global warming requires an international movement to force political change.

Researchers find strong clues that sea ice covered tropical climes, including the equator, 716.5 million years ago, suggesting there was a time of a “snowball Earth.”

Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a “snowball Earth” event long suspected of occurring around that time.

Chesapeake Energy’s chief executive officer, Aubrey McClendon, struck a positive note on the future prominence of natural gas as an energy source, though some critics decried new gas extraction techniques.

Climate change, population growth present fresh challenges to a global food supply system already showing cracks.

An international team of researchers has created a genome-scale map of 26 cancers, revealing more than 100 genomic sites where DNA from tumors is either missing or abnormally duplicated compared to normal tissues.…

In a quest for cheaper power, HBS professor helps Maine islanders get wind turbine project off the ground.

Making good use of the Web, students from the Harvard Graduate School of Education are using virtual internships to gain valuable experience without leaving home.

Harvard engineers have successfully created a silicone rubber stick-on sheet containing dozens of miniature, powerful lenses, bring them one step closer to putting the capacity of a large laboratory into…

By creating diamond-based nanowire devices, a team of Harvard researchers has taken another step toward making applications based on quantum science and technology possible.

Researchers at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences find that a diamond nanowire device could lead to a new class of diamond nanomaterials suitable for quantum cryptography, quantum computing, and magnetic field imaging.

Harvard Kennedy School panelists say that the slippage in mainstream media outlets means more voices argue about environmental issues, prompting the public to have difficulty sorting out the cacophony and even to doubt global warming.

Harvard Medical School professor Nicholas Christakis, whose work focuses on social networks, and economics professor David Laibson, who examines how and why people make the decisions they do regarding savings…